Practicing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Part 2

<music, bassoon solo in Rite of Spring, number 1 until the end of the solo>

Now let’s discuss the complex passage at number 1. We have here a triplet within eighth notes and all sorts of ornaments around it. Let’s concentrate on the triplet within the eighth notes at number 1. I start subdividing triplets at least one beat before the triplets are in the music. This is a good strategy for you to use when you need to change subdivisions. If you have the opportunity to start in your mind the subdivision coming up then you should do so. So, for instance, let me play the pickup to 1 as an eighth note [not a triplet eighth!] and then I am going to play triplet eighth notes at 1 going on to the end of 1.

<music>

I was tonguing the notes [subdivisions] so you can hear what I am hearing in my mind. During that high C I am thinking…

<singing pulses>

…I am thinking the triplets so that when I get to the triplets they are very even.
Now in terms of practicing the technique of passage there are difficulties here. So, I would break it apart. This is another good practice strategy: to break apart the difficult passage into its elements. We have now practiced the rhythm, so let me know practice the gracen otes leading into the triplet 16ths.

<music>

I am not tonguing the grace notes, instead I am fitting them into that rhythm . By practicing the tonguing on the high C and I pacing myself. The other thing you can do is to use your metronome. Let’s set the tempo for three times forty which is 120.

<music>

There. I am practicing and being very careful with the placement. When I have mastered that, I should then practice the triplet sixteenths going first to the high C. That is going to be complicated.

<music>

If I need to slow down the metronome, practice it slowly, and then speed it up. [That is OK.] When I am able to get to the high C, then I turn the C into a grace note to the Bb.

<music>

See how that works? So I first have to get myself to the C before I get to the Bb. It doesn’t do me a lot of good practicing going directly to the Bb because I must insert that C a little later in this passage.
OK, so I think that covers what you need to do with your practicing in that section.